


Excerpt from "Seeing Beyond: the Life and Work of Samuel Freedman"

by The_Kinky_Pet



Series: Stories in the Power & Paradox Universe [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-14 21:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4581495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Kinky_Pet/pseuds/The_Kinky_Pet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Expanded world building from the Power and Paradox universe; original description of "Seeing Beyond" bookends chapter 45.  Sadly, it will probably make little sense without reading Power and Paradox.</p><p>* * * * * * * * * * * </p><p>Naomi Jacobs’ account of Samuel Freedman’s pioneering historio-anthropological research is outstanding on its own; however, "Seeing Beyond" also tells a remarkable love story, deftly balancing the two elements of the narrative.</p><p>In 1919 Lydia Freedman, a South Carolina Dominant of African heritage, met Samuel Thomas while he conducted interviews with her father and uncle early in his anthropological career. A brilliant and widely read autodidact, Ms. Freedman was struck particularly by his “bashful sweetness and fierce intelligence,” and she courted him in a series of breathtaking letters that Jacobs has beautifully reproduced. After a prolonged courtship by correspondence, the couple met once more and formalized their engagement. They then fled South Carolina for New York where they married and Samuel took his Domme’s last name. After a period of initial struggle, they settled in Harlem where they opened a successful jazz café together and raised two children, Constance and Jeremiah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excerpt from "Seeing Beyond: the Life and Work of Samuel Freedman"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vash5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vash5/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Power and Paradox](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063802) by [The_Kinky_Pet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Kinky_Pet/pseuds/The_Kinky_Pet). 



> At the request of Vash5, I sat down to try and write a some of Lydia's love letters. I don't think they qualify as 'breathtaking' but here it is, with a little bit more of the love story and academic commentary.
> 
> WARNINGS: references to historical racism and orientationism

According to the custom of the times, Lydia first secured Samuel’s permission to write to him. As we learn in later letters, they first began conversing after he interviewed her older relatives. He found her on the back stoop reading a battered edition of _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_ and they swiftly discovered their shared love of poetry. It is perhaps unsurprising then that Lydia’s early letters are peppered with quotations and allusions to canonical works. (In her early letters particularly she draws on the conventional stance of a humbly beseeching Petrarchan lover.)

Yet, in her position in the 1920s, her use of literary canon takes on an added poignancy: it is easy to imagine something a little anxious in Lydia’s conspicuous and virtuoso displays of learning which range from the King James Bible to Homer, from Ovid to Elizabethan and Victorian poetry. Over the course of their correspondence—and partly at Samuel’s insistence—she develops more and more of her own voice and writes more of her own experiences, though she continues to playfully adapt the conventions of the literary canon she so clearly loves. The Renaissance trope—most famous in John Donne—that the two lovers become a microcosm complete in themselves and wholly apart from the world takes on a new poignancy considering the world’s hostility to Lydia and Samuel’s love.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

_September 4 th, 1920_

_Dear Mr. Thomas,_

_Thank you again for so graciously agreeing to receive these, my emissaries of ink stained paper—they come to you humbly with a low bow, on bended knee, grateful for the audience, wishing to spread the riches of a whole kingdom at your delicate feet. Alas, the only treasure I have is myself, but I make this meager offering to you freely and completely._

_If you flee from me with a smile, I’ll take to my heels and give chase; whither thou goest, I will go, high and low I’ll follow, love in my eyes and a song in my throat. But if your sweet lips tremble with a frown, I am no Apollo to give unwanted hunt. Shall I ask you then, beautiful boy: How can I make you smile?; Could you ever love a gentle huntress, a Diana willing to devote her bow only to your service?; Could I tame your wild heart to my loving hand? _

_But now I think I see you-- a diamond collar_ _your fair neck round about, graven with diamonds in letters plain Noli me tangere. It looks heavy; the diamonds glitter, but their edges sharp. Does it pain you? Shall I set you free?_

_Command me anything to make you smile, and it shall be done._

_Yours,_

_Lydia Freedman_

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

_September 14 th, 1920_

_Ms. Freedman,_

_In your letter, you claimed all the riches you had to offer me were yourself, but not so for you send me Sidney, Shakespeare, Wyatt, Ovid and the Book of Ruth. Treasures indeed! But I’m already possessed of fine editions of those musty tomes, leather-bound and gilt-edged. If you offer to send yourself, then it is yourself that you must send. I found little Lydia in those lines._

_I await your reply._

_Sincerely,_

_Samuel Thomas_

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

_September 22, 1920_

_Dear Mr. Thomas,_

_You are quite right to chide me so! (Shall I confess I admire you all the more for your sharp wit and bold words?) But what shall I say if you take away the borrowed words of my friends, my constant companions these many years? You can little blame me for sending them to plead my case—their eloquence so far overshoots mine and, knowing as I do, you love them already, was it too much to hope for some happy transference? Still, I’d be a coward not to try and obey your sweet command and so—ungilded and unadorned, I write you now._

_But what shall I say? Shall I tell you the first time I saw you? You’d snuck away from your debutante’s cotillion and hidden amongst the linden trees; I saw you clearly in the moonlight, bright blond hair and fine white suit, shining loveliness in the shadows at your Estate’s edge. You were so small, so sad. And I knew what it was to have the wrong candles glowing with flaming reproof on a cake all the wrong color. I wanted to comfort you—though uncertain of my welcome—but soon your brother strode ‘cross the lawn to drag you back to the party. The moment was fleeting, but your beautiful sad blue eyes lingered in my mind. You never knew I was there and it was long ago—you just a boy, and I just a girl—but I remember it well._

_That memory sprang fresh to mind at the sight of your card at our house. Your calling card—thick cream paper, crisp type and golden trim—like you’d gone visiting your parents’ friends. It was no accident that I was home at the time appointed for you to interview father and Uncle Jeremiah._

_How would it be, do you think, if all those years ago I’d stepped forward to ask if you had a favorite Shakespeare play? (At the time, mine was A Winter’s Tale. What would your answer have been then?) Would we have run off, hand in hand, to recite our favorite sonnets? I could have helped you hide from your brother; he’d never have found my haunts ~~, with his sharp voice, his large grasping hands.~~ Could you have loved me then in childish friendship? _

_Could you love me now? Am I right to hope?_

_I long for your reply and for your gracious permission to write you once more._

_I remain ever,_

_yours,_

_Lydia Freedman_

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In the winter of 1922, Lydia was under pressure from her family to abandon her "foolish courtship which would bring nothing but ruin to [them] both." Though her father in particular was fond of Samuel, he argued that, even if she won his hand in marriage, Samuel’s privileged upbringing would leave him unprepared for the hardship they would face together and that, before a year of marriage were out, he’d surely grow bitter and resentful. They persuaded her that it would be best for his well-being to abandon her courtship. Heartbroken, she wrote to break off their engagement.

Samuel’s only reply was the full verse of The Book of Ruth that Lydia had quoted only in part in her first letter:

_Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people_

They left the next morning for New York and were married three days later. Samuel took the last name of Freedman.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope I did justice to Lydia Freedman. It was a pleasure and a privilege writing her. (Uh.... would it be crazy to consider writing an original novella about Samuel and Lydia's love story? 'Cause I kinda can't stop thinking about it.)
> 
> Lydia's letter contains a quote from Wyatt's "Whoso List To Hunt;" 'noli me tangere' means "do not touch me" in Latin and is a phrase that appears in both the Vulgate Bible and Wyatt's poem. The phrase "tame [your] wild heart to [my] loving hand?" is an adaptation from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and the Apollo reference is to Ovid's story of Daphne and Apollo in Metamorphoses. (But Apollo's pursuit is quite explicitly rapey, and I thought it would be important to Lydia to dramatize her respect for consent explicitly.)
> 
> Hope you liked this! Comments are a delight!


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